Let’s get one thing out of the way before the music industry gatekeepers with their pitchforks come out: I am a real musician. I’ve been writing my own lyrics and music for more than three decades. I played in a rock band in the ’90s. I’ve recorded hundreds of demos on a Tascam multi-track cassette deck — remember those? And I have boxes of songs that never made it past a hissy tape because studio time, session vocalists, and professional mixing cost more than most of us will ever spend on a house.
So when I tell you that AI music tools have brought me more success than twenty-plus years of doing it the traditional way, understand that it’s not coming from some bro who typed “make me a hit song” into a chatbot last week. It’s coming from a radio and nightclub DJ who paid his dues, got quoted six figures for a vocalist he couldn’t afford, and finally found a way to get the music out of his head and onto Spotify.
(If you’d rather watch than read, the full walkthrough is in the video below — including me creating a brand-new song from scratch, live.)
How I Covered 8 Old Albums With Suno AI
The tool that changed everything for me is Suno, an AI music generator that turns lyrics and a style prompt into a fully produced, studio-quality track — vocals, instrumentation, and mix — usually in under a minute. For less than $20 a month, I’ve imported close to 300 of my old songs and released about eight albums to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, and every other major streaming platform.
Here’s what that actually looks like in practice:
I write my own lyrics. Decades of songwriting didn’t go to waste. They got supercharged! I upload demos I wrote in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, plus new material, and it handles the parts I could never afford: a vocalist, a band, a studio, and a mixing engineer who’s not me for a change.
I resurrected old songs. Suno lets you upload your old recordings — yes, even those terrible cassette-quality demos — and create modern covers of them. It even does a very good job automatically transcribing the lyrics. I had to fix some, but most are surprisingly spot on considering how bad some of my one-take three-tequila demos were. Songs I wrote thirty years ago that existed only on degraded tape are now streaming in studio quality. If you’re a musician with a drawer full of dead demos, that feature alone is worth the subscription. I was shocked to find some of my rock songs sounded better as ethereal chill EDM songs, and one of my pop ballads is now one of my most popular goth rock tracks!
I direct everything. Style prompts, genre choices, male or female vocals, tempo, key, solos, harmonies, and which takes get released and which get scrapped. The AI is the session band; I’m still the songwriter and producer. That distinction matters, and I’ll circle back to that.
Is AI Music Just “AI Slop”? An Honest Answer From a Real Musician
I get it. If your livelihood depends on making music, this technology feels like a threat. And the more I work with it, the more I realize this threat is real. If I were still in the biz, I’d poo my pants too. And the easiest early non-adopter defense is to just call all of it “slop.”
And some of it is. If a bot writes the lyrics, a bot picks the style, and nothing with ears ever listens to the output, you get exactly what you’d expect. But that’s not what serious AI music creators are doing. When a human writes the lyrics, shapes the sound, generates dozens of takes, and releases only the handful that are genuinely good — that’s not slop. That’s production. It’s the same judgment call musicians have always made in the studio. The tools just got faster and dramatically cheaper.
Here’s my honest take after decades on both sides: some of the music people have made with AI is better than a lot of what’s on the radio right now. And you effing know it.
Will You Get Rich Making AI Music? (The Real Numbers)
No sugarcoating: streaming pays fractions of a penny. Unless you have a big audience already, AI-generated music won’t ever replace your income. I share my actual monthly earnings in the video, and they’re beer money, not rent money.
But “success” was never just a royalty check. Success is finally hearing a song you wrote in 1995 with the vocalist it always deserved. It’s releasing that Christmas album you’ve dreamed about for decades. I finished mine in about four hours on a cruise ship. It’s strangers on the other side of the world adding your track to their playlist. With the old way, twenty years of work got me a shoebox of cassettes no one else ever heard. The new way got me a legit discography.
My Five AI Music Projects on Spotify
This is where the rubber meets the road. All five of my artist projects are streaming now on Spotify (and Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer, and everywhere else). Every one is built on lyrics and musical ideas I wrote myself — AI fixed some, made some better, and finally gave the obscure ones a voice. Listen for yourself.
🎧 Chuck Fresh Chill — Chill & Downtempo
My longest-running pro project, started in 2016 with chill instrumentals, now with the voices I couldn’t find back then. Laid-back electronic and dream-pop vibes for working, driving, or decompressing. You’ve probably heard some of these in the background of TV shows or in indie movies. For the best stuff, start with the Afterimage and Northern Lights albums.
🎤 Kaelen Vox — Chillwave / Ambient
My most successful artist. These are songs I wrote across the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s that were always meant for a female vocalist I could never afford to hire — quotes were north of $100,000 for one album. Digital Kaelen sings them beautifully, and she never gets sassy when I ask her for a 25th take. She’s even got a collection of music videos on her verified YouTube channel.
🎸 Underpresence — Rock
The rock project, with roots in my ’90s band days — including modern covers of songs I originally wrote and recorded back then. The first two releases were largely much improved covers of my old stuff, but this now experimental artist changes genres with every new release. If you like your rock loud, check out the hair-metal throwback album Living In Glamnation. If you’re a goth or punk rocker, head towards In Goth We Trust. Wait ’til you hear the next one… surprises coming!
🤠 Jake McGrew — Country
A country artist out of Philadelphia who started as a joke back in 2007 (“country is just rock with a twang, right?”) and turned out to be harder — and more fun — than I expected. Jake has even picked up a small, loyal following of fans he’s never met.
✝️ The Good Pleasure — Christian Contemporary
The newest project: uplifting Christian contemporary music. The debut EP Due Season is streaming now.
Give them a follow, add a few tracks to your playlists, and if something connects with you, share it. Streams and follows are how independent artists, AI-assisted or not, get found.
How to Start Making Your Own AI Music (Even With Zero Experience)
Want to try it yourself? Here’s the short version of my workflow:
- Sign up for Suno — the free tier is fine for experimenting; a paid plan (starting around $10/month) is required for commercial use and streaming distribution.
- Write or generate lyrics — Suno can write them, but your own words will always feel more like your song. AI chat tools are great for a jump start when you’re stuck.
- Craft a style prompt — describe the genre, mood, tempo, and instrumentation. Saying “inspired by” an artist’s general sound works; copying doesn’t (and the tools will block it).
- Generate, listen, and curate ruthlessly — you get multiple versions of every song. Keep the great ones, kill the rest. This is where the “human” in human-made lives.
- Distribute — a digital distributor gets your finished tracks onto Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and the rest.
That’s genuinely it. No studio, no gear, no gatekeepers. Just a laptop, or even your phone, plus whatever tune has been rattling around in your head for years. It’s now REAL!
The Bottom Line
I spent over twenty years writing music the hard way, and I wouldn’t trade that experience — it’s exactly why my AI-assisted music doesn’t sound like slop. But I’m done pretending the old gatekeepers were protecting art rather than access. This technology finally let me finish what I started decades ago, and it can do the same for you.
The future of music isn’t AI instead of musicians. It’s musicians with AI. I’m embracing it — and honestly? I’m having more fun making music than I have in thirty years.
Listen to all five projects on Spotify, and drop a comment with what you’re creating. I’d genuinely love to hear it. Here’s a mish-mosh Spotify Playlist just for fun.
